Welcome to London!

July 11, 2010

   It’s probably going to be the case that my blog posts will be written in Word first and pasted into my blog hours to maybe a day later.  I have no Internet in my room, which is no big deal, but will have to get to the café up the street to snag some WiFi.

   SO, welcome to London!  This has definitely been an adventure so far.  The flight after my last post was written turned into quite the ride.  It was very shaky, lots of turbulence.  I haven’t slept since about this time yesterday.  It’s 4:15 p.m. here right now, which makes it 8:15 a.m. home time.  I’m exhausted and very moody but it’s “too early” to go to bed yet.  If I go to bed now, I’ll be up at midnight.

   After we landed at Heathrow, I figured out the group I wanted to meet up with would be landing in a completely different terminal a few hours later so I decided to head out on my own (don’t freak out Mom, I’m fine) to find my way to the dorm.  Yes, I said dorm.

    Feels like college, but without air conditioning.  :)  It’s actually a pretty decent place and will be just fine once they can get our toilet to flush, hopefully in the morning.  But I digress… 

   So after I was cleared to enter the country, (those passport guys don’t mess around!  I felt like I had done something wrong or that they thought I was going to even though they only asked me how long I was staying, where I was going, and why I was here.) I grabbed my luggage and couldn’t find the one other person I thought was going to be on my flight, so I decide to make the trek from Heathrow to Paddington Station via the Heathrow Express.  Once I finally found the Heathrow Express, it was a 15-minute ride to Paddington Station.  Once I got to Paddington I ran into Jesse, another Globey :) and was so happy to see a familiar face that I almost cried.  We made the rest of the journey together.  We got lost a bit on our walk to the dorm, but we found it.  Then we found the bar/hangout/WiFi spot and drank the best ice tea I’ve ever had. 

   I’m in my room now, trying to cool off.  It might be 100 degrees in Oakley, but at least it’s a dry heat!  I started sweating the minute I landed and haven’t stopped yet.  It’s around 80 degrees here and like 800% humidity.  Did I mention the no A/C part… anywhere?!  Because this is ENGLAND and air conditioning is against their religion, or they don’t really need it much… something like that.  :)  I understand it’s supposed to cool down this week though.

   I am really looking forward to my stay here and the work I am going to do.  The English have been very friendly so far.  You can stop just about anyone to ask a question and no one pretends to not hear you! :)

   I think I’m going to try to finish the book I couldn’t read on the plane, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner.  Hey!  I’m going to be surrounded by Shakespeare for two weeks.  I can read something fluffy!